Numerous communities and other organizations annually sponsor celebrations, fairs, festive occasions or similar events. These events often draw very huge crowds who often consume vast amounts of beverages or refreshments and especially when these events are held during the hot summer months. The beverage revenues often constitute a major income source for the sponsoring organization.
Conventional beverage or refreshment dispensers usually fail to afford sufficient cooling capacity or accessibility to dispense the abnormally high demand for beverages or refreshments at such crowded events. Consequently, the manner in which such beverages or refreshments have been heretofore served at such crowded celebrations remains substantially the same as it existed for the past hundred years or more. The most common practice for dispensing such beverages and refreshments involves icing and serving containerized or capped beverages or refreshments (e.g. such as bottled or canned beverages often referenced herein as capped beverages) directly from a large uninsulated holding tank or receptacle such as a large animal watering tank.
Several hours of pre-cooling and numerous cooling tanks are normally required to provide adequate cooling capacity for the cooled beverages or refreshments. Large amounts of ice cakes are consumed each day in order to appropriately cool the beverage and refreshments. Although several decades ago ice cakes were readily available at a relatively low cost, the costs and amounts of ice consumed at current events constitutes a major expense. Several thousands of dollars can easily be spent within a few days to ice beverages at a major celebration.
The dispensing of beverages or refreshments from large cooling tanks presents a number of other problems and disadvantages. It is typically necessary to dilute the ice with water so as to enable the server to readily locate the appropriate beverage or refreshment brand within the serving tank. As the ice melts, the water level tends to rise and more ice is periodically needed to maintain a proper cooling temperature. The excess water must be periodically drained or siphoned from the serving tanks. Meanwhile the servers will typically reach into the cold water with their hands and/or arms to retrieve the capped beverages from the tank. This creates a relatively unhealthy environment to the server as well as for the consuming public since the patrons normally drink the beverage or refreshment directly from the uncapped container.
Typically a number of different refreshment or beverage brands are also dispensed from a single cooling tank. This leads to inefficiencies not only in locating the appropriate beverage brand within the tank but also creates problems in maintaining a proper inventory control of the various cooled beverage brands. Consequently, difficulties in maintaining a proper amount of cooled beverages of each brand arises and shortages frequently occur during the event. Consumption and beverage serving often occurs upon bare or unimproved grounds in a tented or sometimes unsheltered environment. From time to time excess water must be drained or siphoned from the serving tanks as the ice melts and fresh ice is added to replenish the depleted ice stock. Normal water removal practices often simply entail opening a drain plug so as to allow the excess water to run onto the bare ground. Environmental and sanitation problems can arise from such practices.
More often than not, these events and celebrations are conducted in an unsecured or unprotected surrounding. The cooling tanks generally require attendance and monitoring several hours before serving and a constant attention throughout the entire event (often several days) so as to maintain proper icing and security to the beverages. During the nighttime hours crews to guard against theft and drain excess water from the tanks and to restock ice to the tanks are typically required.
The U.S. Patents do not appear to recognize the inadequacies of current practices. There accordingly exists within the U.S. patent literature a failure to recognize a long felt need or even more remote the physical embodiments whereby such a long felt need may be fulfilled. Several U.S. Patents cover various patented aspects of milk coolers for cooling ten-gallon milk cans at the farm. Illustrative of such patented milk coolers are U.S. Pat. No. 2,104,684 to Wilson, Jr. which discloses a three compartment milk cooler wherein the inner compartment serves to cool ten-gallon milk cans immersed in water while the outer compartments serve as an ice reservoir for cooling the inner compartment. In U.S. Pat. No. 1,782,840 to Cann, there is disclosed a milk cooler for mechanically cooling ten-gallon milk cans immersed in water within the tank by means of mechanical refrigerant coils positioned about the cooling tank wall. A mechanical milk cooler of the ten-gallon can cooling type equipped with an ice bank control system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,512,066 to Linfor.
In Reissue Pat. No. 15,683 to Peterson there is disclosed a rack for quick freezing unpackaged meat articles by immersing racked meats into a freezing refrigerant. Similarly, a freezing frame for holding and freezing blood plasma contained in flexible bags is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,565,073 to Lavender. U.S. Pat. No. 3,368,361 to Rietdijk discloses a device for maintaining articles at a low temperature (e.g. liquid helium coolant) within housing have receptacles therein spaced at different levels. U.S. Pat. No. 4,734,344 by Repking et al discloses a refrigerated container suitable for shipping perishable articles such as flowers in which a compartmentalized insert loaded with ice is inserted into the container to keep the perishables cool. A milk crate for holding ice around milk bottles is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,183,090 to Boone. U.S. Pat. No. 634,070 to Smith discloses a milk rack for carrying milk bottles which includes an ice cage for ice. A semi-trailer equipped with sprinkler heads to chill fresh produce with cold water and liquid nitrogen feed into the water so as to cool the water spray and to also purge the trailer of oxygen is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,454,723 to Weasel, Jr.
The aforementioned patents are reflective of the failure of the art to direct its attention to those problems associated with serving containerized beverages to large crowds of people. Throughout the last century or so, the devices and the methodology for serving large crowds has remained substantially unchanged.